Posted on 06/22/2002 9:46:05 AM PDT by quidnunc
This summer will mark the 47th year since I took my first Republican job: as public relations director for the party in Minnesota. Since then I have rarely strayed from politics, or my party. I served as a staffer to two GOP congressmen, to a GOP governor, as a federal appointee to Richard Nixon and as a corporate executive who supported in Washington and Springfield much, if not all, of the Republican agenda.
You can describe me as a conservative. Thus I am qualified to say that although I dearly love conservatives, they tend to be querulous, disagreeable and threaten revolt when Republican office-holders don't please them. So it is now with George W. Bush. Here is a president who has surprised us all with the firmness and resolve he showed after 9/11. I must tell you I voted for him with less enthusiasm than I had for many of his predecessors. But his administration has pleased me often — most notably on two issues: defense of America and social policy.
Yet, Bush has to get re-elected in a country that is evenly divided on philosophy. Thus he must occasionally — on matters that sometimes offend conservatives — dip into the other side's ideology for support. He has done so on three notable occasions: on the issue of steel protectionism, where he departed his free-market proclamations; on the signing of a campaign finance bill tailored by his enemies, and allowing his attorney general (in the words of Libertarian Nat Hentoff in the Washington Times) "to send disguised agents into religious institutions, libraries and meetings of citizens critical of government policy without a previous complaint, or reason to believe that a crime has been committed."
In a perfect political world, where conservatives are in the majority, these things would be sufficient to encourage a boycott of the polls. Either that or a protest vote for the Democratic opposition. But we are not in a perfect world. We conservatives have a president who didn't receive a majority of the votes, and has one house of Congress against him. He must make compromises to get re-elected. Conservatives who do not understand the nature of politics ought to stay in their air-conditioned ivory towers and refrain from political activity altogether. If they cannot adjudge the stakes in this election and the difference between Bush and an Al Gore or a John Kerry (D-Mass.) or a Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), they are foolish indeed.
-snip-
To read the remainder of this op/ed open the article via the link provided in the thread's header.
No... not there... over a bit...
There it is.
Political Tofflerism.
But our efforts to quell them haven't worked, and they have engendered a backlash and given people opportunity to claim that we are biased one way or another.
Oh well, it is a neverending learning process.
AMAZING
Don't be shocked if this is, in fact, what actually happens. Unless we convince Republicans to take a stand and fight Democrats, it is precisely what is going to happen.
The real enemy of freedom and the American people is liberalism, and liberalism is in control of the Democratic Party. The job of conservatives is to convince Republicans that we must defeat and kill the political viability of the Democratic Party. And if that task doesn't start with FreeRepublic, who will be left to carry the ball?
I agree, the problem is the majority of the American people have bought into this socialism thing to one degree or another.
They may not want it all, but they want some of it...whether it's education, health care, retirement, disability insurance....they think the Federal government ought to do it, and if the GOP tries to cut the funds they are seen as "mean-spirited".
Granted, the government should be moving away from, not towards, socialism, but the problem (IMO) is not convincing the GOP leadership of that, it's convincing the American people of it.
How are we going to do that? What do you suggest?
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
I understand and sympathize with your thinking, but I hope you will read my posts on this thread and reconsider your thinking. As long as Republicans can take the conservative vote for granted, they are free to court moderates and liberals. It will be the agenda of liberals that will be enacted, not ours.
There really are two wars in progress in the United States. Bush is successfully dealing with the foreign threat. But he and the Republicans not dealing effectively with the domestic theat. We are losing to the socialists, now the Democratic Party. We must defeat and destroy the Democratic Party before they successfully destroy the United States. They have the country on course to be financially and economically bankrupt in less than two decades. We have less than a decade before these changes might become irreversible. No one within the Republicn Party has a loud enough voice to ensure that people are listening. FreeRepublic successfully launched an effort to impeach WJC. Many Americans and enough Republicans heard our voice. If we Impeached a President, can we take control of the Republican Party. If we can exercise enough control on the Republican Party, we can take our country back.
I posted the ACU-rating because, for the most part, it shows that Dole was solid over a long career. In office, he would have been, at a minimum, receptive to conservatives. A glowing endorsement? Hardly. But Dole is hardly worth your level of scorn, either.
And self-righteous censors tend to operate on auto-pilot or emotion rather than reflection.
The president can secure the borders under the authority granted him in the constitution.
The president can round up and deport all illegal immigrants and non-citizen undesireables under existing federal laws.
The president can restrict immigration under existing federal laws.
The president can direct the development of a civil defense plan under existing federal laws.
The president has sufficient powers available to him to provide protection to the american people without asking for help from the congress or the courts. The fact that he has taken no action in these matters defies logic.
Because American voters are very diverse with a wide range of interests, concerns and affiliations.
Not that the third party zealots posting here care to recognize that reality is more complex than their cartoon ideologies.
How?
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